Colm Tóibín’s historical novel The Magician is an about the life of German writer Thomas Mann. It is a masterclass in writing and more anon.
Close to the end of the book Mann’s wife Katia says about her son Klaus, who is also a writer, a drug addict and a homosexual:
"Nobody needs a German who cannot stop telling the truth."
Something about the sentence that reminds me about the Ireland of today looking at the Ireland of yesterday.
Talking about Germany. I first arrived at Cologne rail station in 1972, a mere 27 years since the unconditional surrender at Karlshorst.
In the years that followed, certainly up to the fall of the Berlin Wall Germany was ashamed to mention its immediate past. It would have been anathema to see or hear about a far-right student movement. There may have been tiny neo Nazis but they were more a force of derision than anything else.
And how it has all changed. The far-right AfD are most likely to be in state parliaments next year. They prance about as if they own Germany. But it is not only in Germany. Across Europe the monster is showing its head again.
The AfD is growing from strength to strength. It’s clever, scratch the surface and the hatred is not too far away.
The name of the party was a hodgepodge for whatever you are having yourself, populist to the core; The Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party.
And then there is Donal Trump.
Enough.
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